


A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow

by Annissa



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Angst, Basically just life stuff, F/M, Fluff, Songfic, Tragedy, schmaltz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 11:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12816255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annissa/pseuds/Annissa
Summary: Oh when the veil of dreams has liftedAnd the fairy tales have all been toldThere's a kiss at the end of the rainbowMore precious than a pot of gold





	A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow

Sarah is twenty-three when she calls on Jareth for the first time since her run in his Labyrinth, and when he appears before her in her shabby apartment, he can see hope and apprehension warring within her. They begin a tentative kind of courtship, Sarah often looking for signs that he is tricking her, and he can’t blame her for that. Not too much, anyway. He asks her one day why she called him to her and she tells him simply that he was too hard an act for anyone else to follow.

He develops a taste for restaurant food and enjoys the cinema, and these become his favorite types of outings (“dates,” she calls them). She introduces him to her family, though she leaves out the finer details of who he is and where he’s from, and they are surprisingly accepting of him. Her father says that Sarah always did have a taste for the unusual and then invites Jareth to help him with the grill. He’s never simultaneously felt more out of place and more welcome.

She is thirty-three when she finally agrees to visit him Underground. She loves to hike and explore and during a light rain notices a rainbow in the distance. She challenges him to hike with her to the end of it and find the pot of gold. She’s joking, he knows, but he humors her and they walk for hours. He studies her face, enjoying the shock and wonder there when, in a small clearing off the beaten path, they actually do find the end of the rainbow. She isn’t disappointed that there is no pot of gold; she merely kisses him and tells him the experience is far more precious, anyway. It becomes a favorite spot where they often go and he tells her old stories forgotten by her kind. She is absorbed by the tales and asks his permission to share them with the world Above. He grants the permission and then re-tells her favorite. He begins:  
In tales of ancient glory,  
Every knight and maiden fair  
Shall be joined when the quest is over,  
And a kiss is the oath that they swear...

By age forty-three, she knows she’ll never have children. It’s unusual for couplings of their kind not to result in children, and she is inconsolable for a time. But there is nothing to be done. He may be magical, but he cannot change her body. By this time, she is a well-known author in the world Above. On the rare occasions she grants interviews, a single question inevitably arises: where do you get your ideas? She never takes credit for them, insisting every time that these are old stories she is merely retelling. She cares financially for her aging father, mother, and step-mother, the proceeds of her books and stories more than enough to cover all of their expenses. She finds peace by anonymously donating the remainder of her wealth to charities all over the world Above that care for children without parents. Jareth wonders if she knows how drastically her work reduces the number of children wished into his kingdom.

Her mother dies when Sarah is fifty-three, and although they’d grown apart since Linda had left their little family, Sarah is still shocked by the news. Robert and then Karen follow Linda in death just a few years later. But this is normal and natural. Sarah grieves each one in turn, knowing that they were loved and that she was loved by them.

But when Toby dies in Sarah’s sixty-third year, it isn’t normal or natural. He was far too young, she says. She was supposed to go first. Her eyes go wide when she says it out loud, the realization shocking her to her core. _She was supposed to go first._ She looks at Jareth, studies him from the tips of his hair to the toes of his boots and backs away. He hasn’t aged a day since they’d met. She knew this would happen, but the reality is a little more than she can take in that moment. She wishes herself Above and stays there for six weeks, unwilling to see him while she comes to terms with the idea that she will age and die and he will forever remain exactly as he is. He’s never hated himself more. 

When she returns, she confesses that she couldn’t stay away. If her time is limited, she wants to spend it with him. She demands a promise from him that he’ll find someone new one day. He refuses to agree, sure that she is what he wants, unsure he’ll ever find anyone he wants as much. She changes her demand slightly, asking him to not allow her memory to keep him from moving on. When he reluctantly agrees, he can see her relax and he realizes she is trying to ensure he finds happiness when she is gone.

By the age of seventy-three, Sarah has developed a sense of humor about their situation. Jareth still loves restaurants and movies and Sarah loves to take him Above and cackle loudly when young women lean in to tell Jareth how kind he is for taking his mother (grandmother? They’re never quite sure) out on the town. She points a crooked finger at them and tells them with all of the wisdom of her years that they’ll want a younger man when they’re her age, too. 

At age eighty-three, Sarah gives up her life Above. They place obituaries in the newspapers and she makes international news, but only for a day or two. She becomes just a name on the spines of several books of fairy tales, the details of her life forgotten by her world. She’s surprised by how little it bothers her.

Hiking had been out of the question for at least two decades by the time Sarah turns ninety-three. But Jareth magicks them to the place where the rainbow ends, summoning a soft bed for her to lie on while they enjoy the fresh air. He’s told her all the stories he knows, but she asks him to retell them, closing her eyes to listen to his voice. He finishes a story and they sit quietly, listening to the sounds of the wilderness around them. When she says she could listen to him forever, he merely responds that forever isn’t so long. He leans to kiss her, and her lips, still warm, do not respond.

A decade passes without her before he travels to their spot again. He stares at the night sky contemplating the one thing he swore he would not do, the pain of his loss still fresh after so many years. He dozes there and dreams of her, a young woman of only fifteen years, a wise old woman, and everything in between: the totality of her life, the way he’d always seen her. She speaks:  
My sweet, my dear, my darling  
You’re so far away from me  
Though an ocean of tears divides us  
Let the bridge of our love span the sea

And when he wakes, he sees finished that which he did not have the courage to do himself. The stars have realigned and he can see her there, smiling down on him, and he knows she will always be there. Wanting him to be happy. Forever. 

Not long at all.

**Author's Note:**

> The title and lyrics quoted in this fic are from the song "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" by Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole, from the movie _A Mighty Wind_ , written by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. The song was performed by Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara.
> 
> Labyrinth is the property of Henson Associates, Inc., Lucasfilm Ltd., and TriStar Pictures.
> 
> I watched _A Mighty Wind_ last night and couldn't get the song out of my head. I sat down about two hours ago and thought I'd outline a fic for it, but then this came out on the screen instead. I offer it unbeta'd in the hope you won't find it too horribly schmaltzy. Thank you to PaintedGlass for telling me just to embrace it. :)


End file.
